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The Entrance Hall.

Above him was a shoe cabinet; ahead was a hanging light.

Time had rewound.

Xia Shou had returned to the moment when he had just entered the Blood Demon House.

"Looks like I went a little over an hour, but that's not a big problem," Xia Shou muttered to himself.

"Lord Xia Shou, we're back."

"Alice?! You're still awake, even though time rewound!" Surprised, Xia Shou took out his mirror and looked at Alice behind him. For the first time, an expression appeared on her face, which had been as still as a statue.

"Because of the contract? Or perhaps my soul is bound to yours? I'm not entirely sure either." Alice's voice was polite and gentle, with a trace of deference as she answered, like a maid only a great noble family could have trained.

"That's all right. This should be a good thing." Xia Shou quickly accepted this unexpected turn of events and ran toward the living room ahead.

"That skill you acquired at the end was quite powerful. Why didn't you try fighting that monster?"

Xia Shou explained patiently, "The limit for rewinding time is one hour, and I acquired the skill [Death Road] through my shadow's devouring. I think its priority must be lower than the shadow itself.

"Besides, since I can retain my memories after time rewinds, that means some things about me won't be reset by the rewind, like my memories, the price I've already paid, the rewind opportunity I've already used, and you, who are still awake now.

"To be conservative, even the 'depth' consumed by using skills might not reset with a rewind.

"If that theory holds, fighting immediately would actually mean spending the resources for my next battle in advance.

"Sure, I might win on the first try, but then I'd have nothing left to fight with on the second attempt, and I wouldn't be able to save Su Weiyu either."

"So that was your reasoning," Alice said with admiration.

Xia Shou continued with a deeper analysis. "Of course, that wasn't my only consideration. When Su Weiyu threw me the Compass and told me to run, she should still have been alive.

"In other words, the Blood Demon doesn't necessarily kill its prey. When it finds prey that interests it, it might keep them with it like trophies, leaving them alive for a while.

"And death rewind is triggered by death. I was worried that if I lost, I might become part of the Blood Demon's collection, unable to die immediately-and therefore unable to rewind.

"In the worst case, even if I eventually triggered a rewind, I'd only return to a point after I'd already lost."

"So there was that reason too."

"Yes, and I wasn't in peak condition then, either. Su Weiyu rashly moved me during the devouring process, causing some backlash from the shadow. My body was actually very weak. If I'd started fighting right then, I'd have had absolutely no chance of winning. It was better to rewind, plan my actions properly, and then face it in peak condition!"

"...As expected of Lord Xia Shou. You thought of so much in such a short time." Alice's praise was heartfelt.

As they spoke, Xia Shou had already reached the original living room. The corpse lay above his head.

While directing his black shadow to devour the corpse, Xia Shou rapidly considered his next course of action.

The complex, chaotic spatial maze took shape as a three-dimensional structure in Xia Shou's mind. He marked the locations of the six corpses and the mysterious charred corpse within it, then used the maze's layout to determine the shortest route.

The price of Death Road had already been paid. He no longer needed to take detours. He could head straight to the classroom to devour those three corpses, then go directly to the ruins to devour the other three.

Streamlining the process like this would save him a great deal of time!

Moreover, [Death Road]'s "dead-end navigation" still existed. He could check the Blood Demon's direction at any time, making a direct encounter very unlikely. So "Death Road" ought to be called "Seeking a Way to Live" now!

Outside the Blood Demon House, Zhang Zhengde had just watched the Tamer enter.

"This Tamer is an unaffiliated Cleaner, right? Is it really all right to have an unaffiliated Cleaner do that to a Containment Bureau employee?" the masked man asked.

Zhang Zhengde glanced at him expressionlessly and replied, "Shangguan Yan sent someone like him here to die. Besides, even if we don't act, the Blood Demon will eat him. Then the people at risk will be the other employees who take over this project, along with civilians who don't know anything about it."

Before he had finished speaking, the official communications unit beside the person in charge let out a shrill buzz.

Everyone at the scene turned toward the unit in shock. That buzz sounded only when an urgent, unscheduled order came from headquarters. It carried the highest authority: if any other order conflicted with headquarters' orders, headquarters took precedence!

Zhang Zhengde immediately strode over to the communications unit and picked up the receiver.

"Seal off a one-kilometer perimeter around the Blood Demon House. No one is to enter the Blood Demon House. Await the execution squad's arrival!" The order was exceptionally brief, but carried an unchallengeable will from the highest level.

While Zhang Zhengde was still stunned, a document arrived on the communications unit's computer.

"What happened?" The masked man stepped forward in confusion.

Reading the document, Zhang Zhengde went deathly pale. "Just now, someone at the Containment Bureau deciphered part of Dorian Gray's Notes concerning the Blood Demon House. They believe the Blood Demon may be able to parasitize an intruder and leave the house!"

He showed the contents on the computer directly to the other man:

[Literal translation of the notes: I heard what happened afterward with this house from a local wizard. He said that people who entered the house could not leave. Those who came out were all hosts parasitized by the Blood Demon.

People parasitized by the Blood Demon normally look no different from ordinary people. Their memories, personalities, everything remains unchanged. But as time passes, their bodies slowly rot, and they must eat the flesh and blood of their own kind to keep their bodies from decaying.

I asked him, "Can't it be destroyed directly? Wouldn't burning it to death work?"

The wizard said, "No. The Blood Demon can only be destroyed inside the Blood Demon House. Once it reaches the outside world, it is immortal. Or rather, what comes out is not the Blood Demon itself, but its evil desire."

"Then I'll go destroy the Blood Demon," I said.

Because of my portrait, I cannot die or be destroyed. I thought that if I entered this house, I would surely be able to destroy the Blood Demon.

But the wizard stopped me. He said that the greater a person's psychic power, the more likely they were to attract the Blood Demon's favor, because only powerful psychics could bear that excessively evil desire. The Blood Demon's parasitism is not a transformation of the flesh, but possession of the soul's spiritual status.

█▊■█▊■█▊████■ (This passage could not be deciphered.)

Demon blood

Possessed Jefferin's body. He turned into wind and fled. I do not intend to pursue him. I am going to the next capital.]

After reading the document, the masked man immediately understood why the house had to be sealed off.

The Containment Bureau had a sealed anomaly called [Jefferin's Blue Tear Ring], a level four contained object. Although they did not know whether Jefferin's own anomalous nature ranked higher than the ring's, since the notes stated that the Blood Demon had possessed Jefferin's body, the Blood Demon's anomaly level was very likely higher than four! The Tamer who had just entered was a Level Three Cleaner, and his possessing spirit's anomaly level was also three.

In other words, before the Blood Demon, the Tamer was merely an ordinary person with no supernatural abilities. His possessing spirit could not hurt the Blood Demon at all. Worse, the Blood Demon might possess his body, allowing this extremely dangerous monster to return to the world!

A buzzing rang in Zhang Zhengde's ears. He knew very well what this document meant.

If the Blood Demon's anomaly level exceeded four, it would require at least a Level Five Transcendent to deal with it.

And whenever a Level Five Transcendent acted, it inevitably caused a small-scale release of curse power. If mishandled, that could inflict mental illness on nearby civilians and destabilize ordinary society!

The way to prevent such an outcome was to have worthless criminals guilty of heinous crimes take the place of ordinary people, absorbing the escaping curse power first.

"Everyone, pull back one kilometer and prepare to set up the Death Row Barrier!" Zhang Zhengde ordered over the radio.

Having finished reading the document, the masked man also sucked in a breath. "I wonder if the bureau still has enough death-row prisoners this year!"

At the same time, inside the Blood Demon House, Xia Shou had already reached the classroom containing three corpses, arriving ten minutes earlier than on his previous attempt.

Five minutes later, all three corpses in the classroom had been devoured.

Xia Shou began moving again...